by Betty Trummel

Many of us are lucky to live a life surrounded by books. I admit, I’m a bibliophile…a person who collects or has a great love of books. I have what I consider to be my garden of books scattered throughout my house. As a matter of fact, you can find books or other reading materials in every room. Whether it’s cookbooks in the kitchen, my polar book collection filling shelves in the living room, stacks of must read books in the bedroom, or coffee table books of all sizes in the family room… it’s all evidence of lifelong learning and enjoyment of reading.

A few months ago I found a list of recommended books, all of which take place in Africa and many written by African authors. An idea started to hatch! What if I started a little lending library for the teachers at Shine Zambia Reading Academy to encourage personal reading for enjoyment at home?

Once again, some friends back home proved to be amazing supporters of literacy and donated funds which I added to what I’d already saved on my own. My idea grew wings to fly!

I purchased ten novels to start the Shine teachers off on this journey. Yesterday I did what’s called a “book talk,” briefly describing each book to whet their appetite and promote excitement. Since I’ve read half of these novels myself, it was easy to talk about them.

Hoping that the next time I visit (or we could do this over Zoom or with a WhatsApp video call) we can have a book club meeting. I think of all the ways I share books and the love of reading with friends, and it would be awesome to share with the teachers at Shine!

I hope there can be additions to this garden of small beginnings. Time to get reading!